


The Pattern Realm

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Warhammer 40.000, Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Chaos, Elves, F/M, War, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2002-01-01
Updated: 2007-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-13 20:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keolah the Seeker shapes a new world from the Void, but it is flawed and broken. Its inhabitants find their own ways to survive as they are eventually forgotten by their creator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The History of the Pattern Realm

Deep within the Void, a lone Elkandu hovered, wishing and dreaming. Her name was Keolah. She had often seen the beautiful seemingly perfect worlds created by other Void Mages, and envied them. She wished to emulate them, perhaps even improve upon their design. But Void Magic was one she was unused to practicing, though her confidence was high, her pure skill was low.

Up she raised her arms and began to weave great patterns within the Void. A pocket was formed, a small universe, room enough for one world of fair size. Reality came into being within this world as Keolah wove her magic. Ground to stand upon formed, as Keolah stepped into the world to build it from within.

Stars sparkled within the sky, a reflection of the eternal Void, and vast oceans spread across the ground. Earth shifted up and formed mountains and valleys. Grasses and trees and other plants began to grow from the fresh soil. Keolah formed fish to swim in the waters, birds to fly in the air, rodents to burrow into the ground, and many other larger creatures. Then she formed a sun to shed its light upon the world and bring night and day, and a moon to light the world by night.

As she stood on a cliff overlooking the sea and Seeking probing the world she had made, she realized suddenly that all was not as perfect as she had hoped. Things did not quite behave as she had intended, and chaos was warping her original design. There were flaws, imperfections, places where the very nature of reality shifted. The laws of physics, reality, and magic, which she was so accustomed to, themselves did not entirely work properly.

Keolah sighed and hung her head low. Her creation was a failure. Where she had tried to create beauty and order, there was only chaos. She contemplated destroying the world for its own sake before it had a chance to hurt anything. It would be so easy to just grasp the thread and unravel it where it was. Destruction was always easier than creation.

Then as she was looking down, something caught her eye. It looked to be a bird at first, but it had a long tail with a spade on the end like a dragon. Its wings were beautiful, the feathers shimmering in red, yellow, blue, and green. Gracefully it rose into the air, banking and fluttering into the sky. This was not her creation, she realized, but a creature born of the chaos. In order, there is chaos, and in chaos, order is born. The bird let out a piercing shriek that ripped across the sky, stirring Keolah's heart even as she stood frozen with her gaze locked upon it.

She decided then and there that no matter how far from her original ideas the world had shifted, she could not destroy it. Stepping outside the world, Keolah wove wards around it, protecting it from any that might seek to destroy it. It may not be perfect, she said, but this was her world. But due to the influence of chaos, she feared to even touch it or do any more than watch. Nonetheless, she swallowed her fear and reached inside...

People were born within the world. Originally she intended elves after her own kind, but they weren't quite elvish. Something about them wasn't quite right, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She shrugged and continued on, giving them speech and intelligence and magic. Their language was very strange though, she noticed. It was as if elements from a dozen languages, words she recognized and those she didn't, mangled together into a single language. They called their language Liba, and thought nothing was strange about it.

Keolah sighed and sat back to watch the exploits of her elves.

As she watched, it quickly became apparent that these were not the long-lived solemn elves she was accustomed to. They were quick and energetic, and very talkative. To her disappointment, they short-lived, their apparent lifespan was maybe 40-50 standard years.

Although years in and of themselves had little meaning in this world, seasons came and went with little discernable pattern. And the seasons themselves were not ones she recognized. Winter, a period of cold and snows, and summer, a dry and sunny time, were recognizable. However, there were also season of wind and clouds, storms and rain, thunderstorms, cloudy dry coldness, streaks of fire rain, meteor showers, leaf storms, mana storms, and other strange things she could not imagine. Each lasted three to six months. The only real regularity was the rising and setting of the sun, and the phases of the moon. At least she managed to do something right. Since only days and months were regular, they were what the elves primarily used to determine time.

The elves set off, exploring and interacting, building cities on several continents. Yet even their separation from each other, their language did not alter. When a new concept arose, they started using the correct word applied to it as if it had always existed, even if the same concept arose in different places. Keolah was intrigued and perplexed by this unnatural phenomenon. It was against all normality in how language developed. Shouldn't in a world of chaos the language also inexplicably change at random? There were no dialects. No evolution. No sound changes. She was completely baffled.

Other species seemed to turn up at random, and came into contact with the elves. A strange race of wolfmen appeared on the northern continent, wolves with psionic powers who walked upright and spoke Liba, exactly the same as the elves even though they had never had contact. They were known as the Tolvurga, the Wolflords. There were also more normal wolves wandering the northern forests, that walked on four legs, some of which also had psionic powers, and were also called Tolvurga. There were also very tall monstrous humanoid wolves without their cousins mental abilities, most of whom were not nearly as intelligent. They were not Tolvurga. It seemed that the term only refered to the highly intelligent telepathic wolves, whether they could walk upright or not.

In the eastern desert, a race of lizardmen appeared, also speaking Liba flawlessly, albeit with a bit of a hiss. Some of them also migrated into the deep caverns beneath the earth.

Toward the west, a variety of feline humanoids were discovered, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were tall and had black or yellow fur, or black and orange stripes, or spots. Some were short with gray, brown, or black fur, stripes, or speckles.

Keolah attempted to introduce more normal races into the world, dwarves and trolls and gnomes into the deep caverns, but she feared her endeavor was a dismal failure. Indeed however a sturdy race of short bearded folk came into being in the underworld, but they were not quite what she had in mind. They were a solemn, peaceful race at first, but the hardships of the underworld forced them to become strong and learn to fight.

The underworld sported many strange creatures, as did most of the places in the world on the surface. Monsters roamed everywhere and all intelligent races were forced to be able to fight them off in order to get anywhere. Vast strongholds and cities were build to protect their children against the monsters.

Keolah looked into these monsters, wondering how it was possible that so many seemingly carnivorous creatures could survive in one place. She discovered, strangely, they fed off each other as well, and off the wild mana in the air around them. They had no real intelligence or thought, for the most part, and hence blindly attacked whatever came close. Most of them laid eggs and were asexual, and kept the eggs carefully hidden so that nobody could come and eat them. The strongest creatures survived to reproduce, yet with each generation, their forms mutated slightly. Their gestation period was extremely short, and they matured very quickly.

There were plans made by some of the intelligent races to exterminate the monsters, or try to tame them to make use of them in some way. On the southern continent, elven wizards set about to finding and destroying nests of monster eggs. In some places, fascinated children poached monster eggs and took them back home thinking perhaps to raise the creature. Usually, this simply resulted in a mauled child when the egg hatched.

However, some of the weaker monsters were able to be muzzled or have their claws clipped shortly after hatching. Some of the monsters were also controlled with taming spells, allowing a wizard control over the monster's primitive mind and issue it simple commands, such as the very important one, "Don't kill me".

The fast evolution of the monsters allowed the elves to control what traits they wanted in the creatures under their power. The more dangerous and less responsive offspring were killed, and the weaker, more tame creatures were kept. Eventually it became inborn for the elven-born monsters to obey commands from elves, or to be docile and tame. Smaller ones were kept as pets, while larger ones guarded travellers through the wilderness or acted as bodyguards for leaders or city gates. It became unnecessary to use magic to control the creatures.

Everything seemed to constantly change, even the very layout of the land. The geography was wracked by magical eruptions, continental drift, earthquakes, and storms. To protect themselves against this, elves often built their cities protected by magical bubbles, and would often float in the air or on the surface of the ocean, or be encased in rock in caverns, or surrounded by thick forests. Other races were more nomadic, and less populous, and those of them that lived in cities often took shelter in the elves' magic as well.

As time passed, the world seemed to stabilize in its own strange manner. Order and patterns formed from the chaos. But they were patterns unlike any other seen in any world. The elves became attuned to their world, and each child was born had to be born with specific latent magicks, or the child would die from some terrible accident at some point. Hence, the elves with the right magic lived on to reproduce. A trace of Void Magic kept them alive from random chaos. Some Time influenced possibilities subtly to prevent most small occurances. Other traces of magic were also helpful. Rarely were the elves actually aware of this magic, but it was in constant affect around them. This caused a constant high mana field around any settlement of elves. The magic of each of the elves interacted and formed an interlocking mesh of protection within the elven cities, hence creating some sense of normality.

In the elven city of Sula, a city that floated on the surface of the sea, a child was born. He was a powerful wizard that could bend reality around him. Seka was his name. Like flowing sunlight was his hair, and his eyes deep blue as the ocean. Long and slender were the fingers that could twist the world to his whim, and sharp and pointed were his elven ears.

Seka was the first of the Order Mages in a word of Chaos... Around him, the world shifted and fell into his view of Order, locking into patterns through the chaos. It was a necessary step perhaps, as the Promised Children began to spread through the world. Seka lived a long life and travelled a lot, and his promiscuous behavior left many children in various elven cities. Their mothers knew who the father was, however, and knew these little ones were special, for they were Order Mages like their father.

As the children of Seka spread, the pattern in the world stabilized. The monsters that had once haunted the world slowed and locked into more stable, normal patterns. Still many dangerous beasts roamed the lands, but they weren't as random and chaotic as they were before, and more predictable.

Yet, some parts of the world were still wrought by chaos, where the elven children did not venture. They remained extremely dangerous and most elves typically avoided them. The Edge of the World, they were called, the swirling seas of Chaos surrounded the Pattern Realm and tried to unravel it at its frayed edges. But the elven Order Mages held their world intact.

The world had no real border anymore. It simply melted into pure chaos and the Void. If one went far enough in one direction, one would end up in the Void or worse, Pandemonium. This was a very dangerous situation, and also often resulted in creatures from the Void and Pandemonium wandering into the world. They rarely managed to rage into the Pattern Realm, only around the Edge of the World, however. But it also opened up the possibility of wanderers from other worlds to enter into the realms...

Inevitably, near the Edge of the World, the first Chaos Mages were born. These elves were descendants of Seka, however, their magic was warped by the close proximity of chaos. Instead of being able to bring order to chaos, they could bring chaos to order, twist the pattern to their desires. It was a very destructive magic.

The first few really didn't realize their power, nor intend it for harm. They survived well in the Edge of the World, being more closely attuned to Chaos than to the Pattern. However, inevitably, Chaos Mages with greed and evil in their hearts were born, and one particularly powerful one sought to bring the Pattern Realm under his rule as a world of Chaos.

Taike was his name, and his hair was violet, and his eyes shifted color with his mood. He stood tall and slender and radiated an aura of power about himself. He led his army of Chaos Mages into the Pattern Realm, conquering one city near the Edge of the World to use as his headquarters. He renamed the city after himself, Taike, and from there made his plans to conquer.

The Order Mages had little defense against them, only to try to nullify their attacks, which often was ineffective. They sent in pyromancers and psionicists to try to attack Taike, but their attacks were beaten back. Tolvurga and Sliths and Mrrshans gathered as defense, backed by Order Mages, and barely beat back an attack on another city, with heavy losses.

Seka had disappeared ages ago, and nobody knew what had ever happened to him. He was assumed dead. The most powerful of the Order Mages, his children's blood were thinner, and did not inherit his full power. Desparately, the Order Mages managed to combine their power, and concentrate to neutralize the normal Chaos Mages attacks. The immediate threat held back, they worked on some way to hold off Taike.

A defected Chaos Mage helped in their plans, and used his powers to allow the Order Mages to train and practice rendering them useless. Through diligent training the mages became stronger and more skilled and more able to cope with the threat. Not one of them could hope to match Taike's power, however, should he choose to attack them directly. However, he remained safely in his city, not reaching outward too quickly, but yet impervious to being removed by the Order Mages.

Up until this point, marriage between Order Mages was strictly forbidden, by the logic that they were technically cousins and it would be incest. However, in the forest city of Losu, two Order Mages had fallen in love, and secretly eloped together. Liva and Karav were their names, and their love was pure and true. Liva soon became pregnant with Karav's child, and the women in Losu wondered who the father was, but Liva would just blush and say she didn't know.

A son was born, and they named him Kabri. It was immediately apparent that he was powerful, more powerful than usual, than most of the children born in this generation. As Kabri grew, it became clear that he was more than a mere Order Mage, he was a Pattern Mage. Rather than just hold the Pattern in place and resist Chaos, he could alter the Pattern to his whim without actually disrupting it. His aura was strong enough to nullify the attacks of most Chaos Mages without even trying.

A few years after Kabri's birth, a sorceress of Chaos escaped from the realm of Taike and stumbled into the forest near Losu. She would give them no other name than Paksa, the Outcast. When she arrived, she was pregnant, but would not say who the father was. A daughter was born to her, and she named the girl Keli, for Freedom. She was a powerful Chaos Mage even from the start, but she was fierce, yet good-hearted.

When Taike learned of Kabri's birth, he was angered, and demanded the child's death at once. Assassins who had Chaos mutated their bodies made attempts on Kabri's life. Yet each attack failed. Taike was outraged. He knew the child was a threat to his supremecy and could not allow it to stand.

But Kabri was a peaceful boy, who sought not to harm Taike, but to bring peace and order. He sent a message by granta-bird to the city of Taike, which offered peace. Taike would be allowed to keep the city that he had ruled for years now, if he ceased his incursions and attacks into the rest of the Pattern Realm. Taike was insulted by the message, and trained his own son, Golak, to rule the city in his absense.

Taike left the city of Chaos and journeyed on the back of a chaos dragon to the city of Losu. Kabri stood out and saw him approach, and climbed up onto his own dragon, a shimmering golden drake. They met in the skies over Losu, Taike snarling with rage and his eyes blazing red with fury.

"I will not allow you to bring harm to my home," Kabri called out.

Taike's fingers flicked a bolt of lightning toward Kabri, which veered off and dissipated without coming very close. "Surrender and you will not be harmed!" Taike screamed into the wind.

"You have your own city," Kabri replied. "Is that not enough for you?"

Taike's only response was a gutteral scream followed by raging chaos storming around him. But around Kabri, there was a sphere of calm, like an eye in the storm. He hovered in midair for a few long moments, as lightning flashed, winds whips, and reality warped and twisted around him. Then he raised his hands, and looked off to the sky.

"If you wish to fight, Taike, this fight will be your last," Kabri said calmly.

Suddenly, the chaos storm gained integrity, reality, and twisted around upon Taike. All the power was focused on one point, and the only thing leaving that point were Taike's screams. Then, the storm vanished, and Taike along with it, as if it had never existed.

Kabri sent another message to the city of Taike, informing them of their leader's death, and reiterating his offer of peace. Golak feared one that could bring about the death of his mighty father, and was not so blindly greedy. One city was enough for him, if that would be the cost of obtaining more. He accepted Kabri's proposal and withdraw the chaos armies. Thus peace returned to the Pattern Realm.

For Kabri's power and skill in removing the thread to their realm, the Order Mages hailed him a king. Some of them, however, merely wished to attempt to manipulate the young lord, for Kabri had barely reached his 16th standard year.

A few years later, it was discovered who Kabri's true parents were, and the Order Mages frowned and puzzled over it. Both Liva and Karav were strong Order Mages. They revoked the ban on descendants of Seka mating with one another, with some trepidation. However, most mages were not overly eager to marry their cousins, and many feared what would happen should too many far too powerful mages be born. They had already faced near destruction and were only saved by the goodwill of one mage. What would have happened to them had Kabri not been so good and pure?

Even though the Pattern Realm was pretty free from the incursions of Chaos, there were still regions where Chaos reigned. An island in the eastern sea, a valley near the frozen highlands, a forest on the western continent, were still home to strange beasts and twisted reality. Yet, even so, there was also a grove beyond the Edge of the World which was pure. The Sacred Grove, it was called, it was tended by a group of devout Order Mages and Druids. Over the generations of isolation, these became one, Druids with Order Magic. Their own city named Talama grew up in the center of the grove, but it was still separated from the main part of the Pattern Realm by a terrible forest of swirling chaos and twisted trees whose branches clawed apart most people who tried to venture through it. Only the most powerful Druids could complete the excursion alive to maintain some contact with the Pattern Realm.

A woman stumbled out of Pandemonium one day, into the Frozen Waste east of Losu. A group of cat people found her there, and took her to Losu to see if the mages there could help her. Kabri went down to see her, and she could not remember her name or how she got there, so he called her Zana. He thought her mind and body had been warped by Chaos, but she was not the only one he had heard of to emerge from beyond the Edge of the World intact.

Kabri was constantly haunted by his Unmaking of Taike. Should any mortal have that kind of power? As the years passed, he became increasingly broody and bitter about it, and regretting his deed, even though it had saved his realm.

He found himself mysteriously attracted to Keli, the beautiful purple-haired Chaos Mage with night black eyes. She had grown into an outgoing, fiercely beautiful woman, and yet her Chaos Magic was strong enough that she could use it in Kabri's presense unless he consciously nullified it. One day, Keli's mother Paksa took him aside, noticing his attraction to her. She told him that the girl's father was, in fact, Taike himself. The Chaos Lord had kept many women as concubines, and Paksa had escaped from his realm bearing his child. Now that he thought about it, Keli did bear a strong resemblance to her father. However, he refused to let this knowledge change his feelings about her.

During the sunny season of flowers and clear skies, Kabri and Keli were wed under a peaceful garden in Losu. People whispered about their marriage, shocked that an Order Mage would take a Chaos Mage as wife, no less a mage of Kabri's stature. Undeterred, Kabri ignored their whisperings, hoping in his heart that he could remedy his sin of Unmaking by making something anew.

A daughter was borne to Keli and Kabri, and they named her Delia, the Dance. Lavender hair flowed from her head, encircling eyes blue as the summer sky. Yet in spite of the power of her parents, she exhibited no apparent magic at all. Kabri was both relieved and disappointed, for she did not even exhude the aura of Pattern that most Order Mages bore.

As generations passed, the magic of the Pattern thinned and spread out, to the point where all elves of the Pattern Realm bore the aura that held their world together. Very slowly, their lifespan increased, from 40-50 years, to around 60-70 years on average. The Order Mages disappeared, for the term was no longer applicable when every elf had their power. Pattern Mages, however, remained, the ones that could consciously alter the Pattern, although they were rare and none nearly so powerful as Kabri had been. Chaos Mages remained, living in relative peace, but their own power was nowhere near what Taike's had been.

But the line of Kabri's descendants continued, the only known marriage between a Pattern Mage and a Chaos Mage, even more taboo due to their children's apparent lack of magic. Did Order and Chaos cancel each other out, preventing either magic from manifesting? Kabri died peacefully in his sleep, happy with the knowledge that his children did not have the power to Unmake and destroy. Unbeknownst to anyone, the magic in Kabri's children did not die. It merely slept, and laid latent, quietly giving no hint to its existance, and waited...

A man named Lim who had known Kabri in life when he himself was a child, told his grandson Frila about the story of Kabri's life and his deeds and how he saved their world. Frila had always loved music and song, and enjoyed writing poems and song lyrics. He declared that he would write a song about the story of Kabri's life and travel around the realms singing it to all that would listen. It was a good song, and through his travels other musicians asked to be taught it and retold it, and it spread throughout the Pattern Realm. As time passed, other story-songs emerged, and were told and retold, and a tradition of bards carrying on the tales of the past evolved.

On the south continent, strange beings began to wander out of the caverns leading to the Underground. They looked to have been warped by Chaos, yet not all were overly violent. Yet they told tales of war in the depths of the Underground, where the war between Order and Chaos continued. There had always been war in the Underground. It was a way of life down there. Few of the reclusive dwarves traveled to the surface, however, caught up in their own fights.

Over many generations of the Pattern Elves, magic faded and weakened, and Elkandu-caliber magic was few and far between. Those who were knowledgeable about magic often died without passing on their knowledge. There was no lack of mana in the world, however, much of it was tied up in holding the world together and keeping it alive, moreso than ever before. The unexplained incursions of Chaos into the Underground were attempting to unravel and subvert the world, held back only by the proud stubbornness of the dwarves, who had also developed a latent Order Magic much like the elves, that held the Pattern together. On the surface, the elves lived in a period of blissful ignorance to this, worried only about the Chaos around the Edge of the World, which seemed pretty tame these days.

Around Talama, Chaos and Order had swirled into a strange pattern, each forming a curve with the Sacred Grove within Chaos, and the Chaos Grove within the Pattern. The Druids of Talama continued to tend their grove, refusing to let their home be swallowed by Chaos. Even the trees seemed to be alive, and the spirits of Nature--Order and Chaos--resided.

The bardic tradition extended even into the realm of Taike, where the Pattern was weaker and intermingled with Chaos. The current ruler of Taike was a man named Keru, and he enjoyed listening to the bard's tales, in spite of his grim look. He brought the bard Reli before him, and while listening to his tale, he boomed, "Thy tongue is too harsh and thy speech unmusical. Let thy words be softened and be more melodious." With his Chaos Magic, he warped Reli's tongue, then commanded him to perform. To the bard's surprise, his words were softer, the sounds less blunt and harsh, and flowed more beautifully. Keru was pleased, and smiled grimly.

When Reli was dismissed, he stumbled off to perform in an inn. The patrons were confused and amused by his strange speech, and some thought he was drunk, but others were curious and attracted to his softer voice. Between the chaotic warping and the bard's minor Speech Magic, the language began to unravel around Taike. Others began experimenting and speaking these softer, more musical sounds. Some thought to put words together in more poetic and original ways, sparking interest and amusement. Soon much of the continent of Taike was affected.

But the people of Taike soon realized the consequences of the unraveling of the Liba around them. Their children, they discovered, were no longer able to speak coherently from the moment of their birth, and instead only uttered gibberish. Over long months the infants slowly picked up normal language, but their parents were upset, and blamed the Chaos Lord Keru. Angrily, some took up arms against the Chaos Lord, and took up fire and shouted obscenities outside his palace. Keru fled from the enraged mob upon his chaos dragon, even as they burst in and set the palace ablaze.

Keru flew north past the Edge of the World and exiled himself in Chaos. Being a fairly strong Chaos Mage, he was able to survive there without much undue repurcussions, but he was always grim and bitter. Mainly of those loyal to him were slain, but some escaped and followed him and resided in his stronghold amid Chaos.

The Pattern Mages of the east continent learned of the warping of the Liba, and forbade the speaking of any other language upon their continent, fearing the unraveling that had occured around Taike. People were not allowed to disembark ships from the north continent who did not speak normally. Without a second thought, they were sent away.

But many of those people were refugees seeking shelter from the anarchy in Taike. Some managed to find refuge on the west continent, while others took a longer route and ended up on the south. Where they went, the Pattern holding the language together weakened, and unraveled. Yet as they distances themselves from the land of Taike, the changes became different. The people in the different lands who heard their speech experimented differently, and their own speech took on different changes.

However, when they discovered that their children could not speak immediately anymore, they were angered, upset, and outraged. They blamed the Taike refugees, and outcast them, persecuting them and slaying many of them on sight. Some of them escaped, or hid, or were kept sheltered by friends in the realms. The damage was done, though, and no amount of persecution would repair it.

Hence, on the central continent, west of the mountains, only there did the Liba remain intact. The Pattern Mages resisted the change, finally completely closing their borders to outsiders. The rest of the world, they wrote off as being lost to Chaos, and refused any contact. Fearful of the taint being spread into their realm, they slammed their doors on the world. With Security and Water magic, they enchanted the seas around their continent, causing ships to turn aside and be unable to find their shores. It became known as the Lost Continent, and passed into legend and myth in the outer realms.

The mountains separating the Frozen Waste from the forest of the Lost Continent were strained by the conflicting magic. They shoot and broke, water gushing in and forcing a deep gorge. Over many years, the gorge widened, a straight opening between the now separate land masses. Chaos Valley's twisted magic spread into the gorge instead, forcing change, and it became the Straights of Chaos instead. The waters were stormy and choppy and filled with sharp rocks that would cut and crush any that tried to swim or sail across. Hurricane-force winds swirling with debris and bits of stone swirled above the Straights, preventing anyone from even flying over it.

But few people lived in the Frozen Waste, nor visited there, and the scattered tribes of catfolk and snow elves were all that remained that could still see the Lost Realm. Thus their legends were very different than those of most other parts of the world, to which they had little contact.

Mayhem and chaos erupted throughout most of the realms, hate and bigotry. Over generations, people forgot why they originally hated. Deep in the north, the descendants of Taike carved out their home in the Chaos, their own city growing up around them, and it was named Keru. Around Taike, anarchy reigned for a time, and eventually a new government emerged, a strong leader emerging from the rebellion. His name was Kopa, the son of a well-to-do blacksmith, and he proposed a less strict form of government than that under the House of Taike. While the children of Taike had been absolute dictators, Kopa proposed a council of nobles to also have a say under his rulership. Those who he promised titles of nobility gladly gave him their support, and thus a new rule was set up in Taike.

As the peoples of the realms became different, different names were applied to the nations. Taikepir were first called the folk of Taike, but the name softened and became Taikir. Yet even the Chaos People of other realms began being called this, often disparagingly or as a curse. Tamir were called the people of Talama, the Tree People. Astenir they thus named in the same manner those of the southern deserts, the Desert Folk. And those that dwelled in the Frozen Waste, they named the Saitir, the Frost People. As time passed and language changed, different names became applied to these, but these were the first called to them by the Taikir, who were first to organize themselves again after the upheaval of the world. But to the people of the Hidden Realm, they gave the name Sekir, in story and legend, and it was a name given with little love, for the Sekir had forsaken the world for their own selfish greed.

But in the realm of Seka, now known as the whole of the Pattern Realm to the Sekir, the story was different. The outer realms were known as the Cursed Lands, realms taken in by chaos and devoured. The Sekir there lived in blissful peace, untouched by the outside chaos, and the Pattern became ever stronger within, such a square and fixed order that it was almost stifling and oppressive. There was little change in this realm, little discontent, simply an unchanging, unending peace. The Pattern Mages wrought and shaped the realm contained wholely in their power now, and fixed it into a square, solid monotony. Yet through this all, the Sekir stagnated, creativity died and the same works of art and music were created over and over. But the Sekir were happy in blissful harmony, as knowledge of anything else as being good faded from memory.

In the tumult of the world, the proud city of Sula sank into the sea. But the bubble of magic around the city remained firm, and kept the water from crushing the city. The people living therein became trapped, and unable to leave the city now unless they had the ability to breathe water. Those with this ability thrived and multiplied in Sula, eventually outgrowing its bonds and building homes outside in the water. As time passed, close proximity to the Sea of Chaos changed their bodies, and many grew scales, and lost their legs, becoming merfolk, and never again walked upon land.

Now, in the west of the Pattern Realm, there lies a strip of land connecting the land of Taike and that of Talama. The land is covered by a vast wilderness, extending deep into the chaos, yet here the chaos was less prevalent than elsewhere, though the wilds be no less dangerous. Little inhabited except by scattered wild elves and the occasional Tolvurga pack, this untamed land would prove a focal point in the struggle against Chaos. In later days the place was called Kelen Tarnos, the Wilds of Great Deeds.

In Losu, Kabri's children grew, and multiplied. Even though it seemed they had no magic, they had power in themselves. These children were ones that resisted that oppressive Pattern, and lived outside it, or in their own Pattern, or perhaps the very Pattern changed solely for them. They were independant thinkers, rebellious and fierce. At first they watched in silence at the growing oppression of the Pattern Mages, even though they had been borne of a Pattern Mage. Yet as generations passed, and they grew more numerous, they also grew more bold. Some dared to speak openly against the rule of the Pattern Mages, yet the more brazen words were unheeded. Others, however, were clever enough to sow their seeds in the dark, to stir the hearts of the people and spark a fire in their souls.

But one child of the House of Kabri, her name was Riza, was discontent and wished to leave, to see the realms that her grandparents had whispered to her in stories, that they were cut off from. The ships of the Hidden Realm sailed only around the coastline now, but those who still loved the sea yet manned them, contenting themselves with what they could. Riza found a small ship moored in a sheltered cove near Losu, its crew relaxing on the beach and playing mournful songs of the sea upon a flute. Quietly, she approached them, listening to the haunting tune, and when he was done, she spoke with them for a long time, asking them if they missed the sea and if the outer realms were really so cursed as the Pattern Mages would let them believe.


	2. A Study on the Tolvurga

_Glitch Tikarr, Research Log._  
Day 19, 4870 LY.  
Needew, Terra, Elkandu Universe. 

* * *

**Introduction**

The Tolvurga are a subspecies of werewolf from the region of the Elkandu Universe known as the Pattern Realm. Although they are not native to that realm, they have abilities unusual for shapeshifters of their kind which set them apart from those Garou which had not been altered by the powers of the Pattern Realm.

Members of several tribes of Tolvurga have found their way back to Terra after the assault upon their homeland and, faced with hopeless odds, decided to save themselves and whoever they could. I will, in this essay, detail their abilities and the differences of each tribe, and estimate which of the original tribes that they might have been derived from.

* * *

**Abilities**

The Tolvurga were not native to the Pattern Realm nor part of Keolah's original conception of that world. Although they retain many of their original abilities inherent to their kind, some of them were suppressed or altered, and new ones came into being, through their long generations of interbreeding with pattern elves and chaos elves.

Foremost, most Tolvurga who possessed pattern blood within them had found their shapeshifting abilities suppressed to the point where they could not shift at all unless they consciously suppressed their own pattern auras. Tolvurga of chaos descent, on the other hand, did not have this problem, although many of those exhibited mutations as well due to their close, extended proximity to chaotic energies.

Interestingly, among the abilities which are common among Tolvurga but not so common among Garou, is their telepathic powers. Nearly all Tolvurga are capable of telepathic communication to one degree or another, whether they are of pattern or chaos ancestry. Because the baseline of non-shapeshifting pattern and chaos elves do not have these capabilities, this suggests that some interesting juxtaposition of the elves' blood and the shapeshifters' brought out this particular ability, perhaps through a deeper connection toward certain types of Ethereal energy.

Due to the long centuries since their last infusion of real human blood into their bloodlines, most Tolvurga in their humanoid form take on the appearance of elves. Pattern Tolvurga tend to have blond hair, while those of chaos or mixed blood have a wide range of hair colors including many unnatural hues, although black is most common.

* * *

**Tribes**

Several distinct tribes of Tolvurga have been observed, each with their own viewpoints and abilities in many cases. I will discuss each of them in turn. I will give both their native name, and the name in English which they have chosen to call themselves and one another after their arrival on Terra and exposure to the language. It is unfortunate that the Tolvurga's long centuries in the Pattern Realm and millennia wandering the Ethereal Plane (as I suspect they had since the Elkandu Crisis) had caused them to forget all but the most vague memories of where they might have come from.

**Talamir, "Forest Children"**

The Talamir are among the most numerous of those who arrived here on Terra, primarily as they did not bear the brunt of the attacks on their homeworld. They are the ones most closely attuned to nature, and prefer to focus upon maintaining a nature balance between pattern and chaos rather than taking on one extreme or another. My best estimate is that they are originally descended from the Children of Gaia tribe. They were the first to learn the trick of suppressing their pattern auras so that they could change form.

**Kabrir, "Promised Ones"**

The Kabrir are unique among the Tolvurga in that they are of mixed pattern and chaos blood. Originally an outcast family descended from the greatest Pattern Mage and Chaos Mage of the Pattern Realm, they were shunned by both pattern and chaos and ended up breeding instead with the Tolvurga. As a result, this tribe came into being. Although they do not emit a pattern or chaos aura like those of pure blood do, they are, in fact, capable of utilizing both sides of that power, as well as ones which are innate to neither. However, the pattern blood in them is still strong enough to prevent self-shapeshifting even if it does not manifest fully in an aura. Should they learn the trick of suppressing it, however, they will have an easier time of it than any other Tolvurga with pattern blood.

I am not certain at the present time which of the original tribes may have spawned the Kabrir, if it was any single tribe at all, although a venture to a guess suggests the Get of Fenris might be a possibility, given the typical attitudes of the Kabrir, but far from the only one.

**Taikir, "Chaos Lords"**

The Taikir are the most predominant of the tribes of Tolvurga who carry the blood of chaos. They are ambitious and independent, however they have rejected the darker temptations that plagued the Keruir. Taikir display a startling level of democracy, interestingly enough, as I believe that they may have been descended from the tribe known as the Shadow Lords. I am told that this came about during the split between they and the Keruir.

**Keruir, "Death Bringers"**

The much-maligned Keruir are an offshoot of the Taikir, and while they provide a neat analog to the Black Spiral Dancers, I am not certain whether any of them were directly descended from that tribe. I am not, however, ruling out the possibility considering the indulgences and attitudes of the Taikir prior to the split. The majority of the Keruir were caught in their home city under a powerful pattern bomb placed by the vampire Falk. A fair number of them, however, were not in their city at this time, and with help from Jez'kai, they proceeded to return to scourge the Pattern Realm in revenge. They are the foe from which the other tribes came fleeing.

**Sekir, "Pattern Weavers"**

Of all the pattern-based tribes, the Sekir were the most deeply enmeshed with the powers of pattern and order, and are quite fascinated with my technology. For this reason, I believe that they are the descendents of the Glass Walkers. The pattern aura is strongest with them, although they also seem to have a bit more control over it than other tribes, being able to more readily bend it toward their will. However, I am told that before their retreat from the city of Seka, many of them seemed to have become entirely lost in this power and exhibited little free will or personality for some reason.

**Kelenir, "Edgewalkers"**

A vagrant tribe of chaos wolves who formerly lived along the Edge of the World. Unlike most of the other chaos-blooded Tolvurga, the Kelenir favored freedom and the wilds over ambition and power. They wandered from place to place, for the most part avoiding the cities of both pattern and chaos alike. I believe at least some of them may have been Red Talons, but I do not think that they were the only tribe represented within their ranks.

**Saitir, "Snow Paws"**

Hailing from the frigid east of the Pattern Realm, the Saitir have lived more closely among the felines in that region than the elves. Interestingly, of all the tribes, they appear to more commonly possess more human-like features in their human forms rather than elvish features. Also, their fur in wolvish forms tends to be snow white. Perhaps they are descendents of the Silver Fangs, or maybe the White Howlers? Or perhaps it was merely an adaptation related to their locale. I am not certain. Their chosen locale might even suggest Wendigo.

**Other Shapeshifters**

Besides the elves of the Pattern Realm and the Tolvurga, there are also races of lizard and cat-people. I believe that they might have been Mokole and Bastet, although I have no conclusive evidence as to whether they were actually shapeshifters or merely lizardmen and catfolk. As they had, however, according to legend, arrived in the Pattern Realm by the same means as the Tolvurga, I strongly suspect that they may have been so. If these races escaped the destruction wrought by the Keruir upon their homeland, however, they did not choose to come back here.

Now that the Tolvurga are away from the Pattern Realm, their selection toward mating will be more limited. Although I am certain that they are fully genetically compatable with humans still, I do not know what effect so diluting their blood will have upon their innate telepathic and pattern-manipulation abilities. Such will remain to be seen through future generations, although I think if they continue to practice it and teach it to their offspring, it will continue to be propogated whether it is so strongly innate or not.

The Tolvurga may have been dealt a heavy blow recently, but they are far from extinct, and given time to recover, they will again flourish on this world or any other which they choose to settle upon.


End file.
